The Economic and Social Review, Vol. 36, No. 3, Winter, 2005http://hdl.handle.net/2262/62019
Thu, 24 May 2018 17:19:41 GMT2018-05-24T17:19:41ZWhat can academics contribute to the study of financial stability?http://hdl.handle.net/2262/60893
What can academics contribute to the study of financial stability?
Goodhart, Charles A. E.
There were hardly any banking crises between 1939 and 1971, so their later reemergence
came as a surprise. Central bank supervisors responded practically by discovering and
encouraging the adoption of current best practice in risk management by individual banks, without much theoretical input, whereas economists have mostly focused on models which abstract from default. But default is central to analysis of financial stability. Shubik pioneered introducing default into formal models, and we aim to develop this further. Meanwhile, estimating the probability of default (PD) for individual, or groups of, banks is central to the Basel II process.
This paper was delivered as the Central Bank of Ireland Edgeworth Lecture at the Nineteenth
Annual Conference of the Irish Economic Association at Kilkenny, May 7, 2005
Sat, 01 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMThttp://hdl.handle.net/2262/608932005-01-01T00:00:00ZTesting for variation in technical efficiency of hospitals in Irelandhttp://hdl.handle.net/2262/60845
Testing for variation in technical efficiency of hospitals in Ireland
Gannon, Brenda
Funding in Irish hospitals is partially based on case mix, whereby resources are
redistributed annually to hospitals with greater efficiency. Accurate measurement of efficiency is essential, so in this paper, we use Data Envelopment Analysis and Stochastic Frontier Analysis to measure technical efficiency of acute public hospitals in Ireland between 1995 and 2000. The results provide estimates of average technical efficiency in the hospital sector in Ireland for the first time, and highlight the variation in technical efficiency levels across hospitals.
Internationally, the results contribute to the growing literature on the comparison of DEA and SFA methodologies.
Sat, 01 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMThttp://hdl.handle.net/2262/608452005-01-01T00:00:00ZEconomic instruments and environmental policyhttp://hdl.handle.net/2262/60159
Economic instruments and environmental policy
Helm, Dieter
Environmental resources are scarce and many are getting scarcer. Resource allocation problems abound and recent experience is disheartening. Despite the growing scientific consensus on global warming, action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has been largely ineffectual. Progress with energy efficiency measures and on renewables has been slow. In the former case, the effect of rising incomes has stimulated demand offsetting on a global level the contribution from technology in widening the gap between economic growth and energy demand. With the prospect of a further 3 billion people this century, and the rapid development of China and India, demand effects will continue to put upward pressure on emissions. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimate that world energy demand will rise by 1.7 per cent per annum between 2002 and 2030, and CO2 emissions over the period by 60 per cent (IEA, 2004). In the case of renewables, limited progress in Europe will be offset by the decline of nuclear output. Biodiversity loss ? the rate of habitat loss and associated extinctions ? shows no sign of slowing down. In a period which matches the geological extinction episodes, efforts to protect the great repositories of biodiversity ? like the rain forests ? have had little aggregate effect. By the end of the century, much of the Amazon will be gone. These problems have been largely caused by the industrial transformation of the twentieth century, based upon the harnessing of fossil fuels, which helped to facilitate a five-fold increase in population. Correcting them will require a switch from fossil to non-fossil fuel energy sources and the protection of species and habitats. These changes will be costly, and a natural way to make the transition to a more sustainable economy is to use the price mechanism and markets. Economic instruments, correcting for the market failures, are an obvious route forward for environmental policy, harnessing the market to deliver the economic transformation required. Yet the paradox is
that economic instruments remain the exception rather than the rule, and their design owes more to politics and vested interests than the guidance which economic theory provides. The toolbox of economics has been largely ignored. The aim of this paper is to restate the arguments for economic instruments, and to explain why this paradox arises by considering the political economy of introducing economic instruments, in particular the role of interest groups, lobbying and capture. Whereas economists ? and environmentalists ? are interested in the substitution effect towards a more environmentally benign economy, political economy is focused on the economic rents from policy and in particular the income effect.
The ESR/DEW Guest Lecture. This paper was an invited presentation at the Nineteenth Annual Conference of the Irish Economic Association in Kilkenny, May 6-8, 2005
Sat, 01 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMThttp://hdl.handle.net/2262/601592005-01-01T00:00:00ZDiscretion and cyclicality in Irish budgetary management 1969-2003http://hdl.handle.net/2262/60124
Discretion and cyclicality in Irish budgetary management 1969-2003
Hunt, Colin
This paper addresses the topic of cyclicality and discretion in Irish fiscal policy. In particular, we show that the level and nature of cyclicality varies across different expenditure components and we introduce a new definition of feasible discretion to take account of political imperatives in budgetary management. We find that overall government expenditure is acyclical and is most heavily influenced by a fiscal parsimony objective. Automatic stabilisers are efficiently counter-cyclical, feasible discretionary government consumption growth is orthogonal to economic fundamentals while feasible discretionary investment growth is strongly pro-cyclical. Using official growth forecasts, we show that feasible discretionary investment growth is deliberately pro-cyclical.
Sat, 01 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMThttp://hdl.handle.net/2262/601242005-01-01T00:00:00Z